Chapter 9 - MY WIFE’S REAL REASON FOR MARRYING ME
Victoria was released on bond the next afternoon.
I met her in a police interview room because I refused to meet anywhere private.
She looked terrible.
No makeup. Hair pulled into a knot. A bruise darkening one wrist where the handcuffs had rubbed.
I hated that I noticed.
I hated more that part of me still wanted to ask whether she had eaten.
She sat across from me.
“Your mother okay?”
“Don’t.”
Her mouth closed.
Detective Ruiz stayed by the door.
I put Elise’s copied ledger on the table.
Victoria stared at the blue cover.
All the color left her face.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your mother hid it.”
Victoria did not touch it.
I showed her the note where Elise wrote that the money did not belong to them and Martin was lying.
Victoria read it once.
Then again.
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
For nearly a minute, nobody spoke.
Finally she whispered, “I thought she died believing they stole from her.”
“No.”
Victoria looked at me.
“What else did Martin tell you?”
Her answer took too long.
That was when I knew there was more.
“I met you on purpose,” she said.
My chest went tight.
Ruiz shifted but said nothing.
Victoria stared at the table.
“Martin told me where you worked. Where you had lunch. He said if I got close enough, I could find out what your family did to my mother.”
I remembered our first meeting at a downtown coffee shop.
She had spilled iced tea on my jacket.
I had joked that it was the most expensive way anyone had ever introduced herself.
Six years later, I could still hear her laugh.
It had been staged.
“How long?” I asked.
“The first few months.”
“Months.”
“Edward—”
“Did you marry me on purpose too?”
Her eyes filled.
“No.”
I laughed because I did not know what else to do.
“That is a hell of a line to draw.”
“I know.”
“No, you keep saying that. You don’t know.”
Victoria flinched.
Then she did something I did not expect.
She reached into her coat and placed her wedding ring on the table.
“I loved you,” she said. “That part was not fake.”
“Was?”
She looked at the ring.
“I don’t think I get to use the present tense right now.”
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